Endangered

by Linda Chaikin

  “I’d prefer you wait until after the conference at the lodge. I want to hear what Vince will tell the conservationists.”

  “Does your interest have anything to do with the elephants in the north? Do you know if there is some sort of problem?” she asked worriedly.

  “That’s what we want to find out” was all he said. “I intend to stay the night. Do you have any objections?”

  She folded her arms to show casual disinterest. “Should I?”

  “Only you can answer that.”

  “As a matter of fact, I was rather hoping you wouldn’t rush off….”

  He lifted a brow.

  “Do you remember the Maasai manyatta inland from here?” she asked.

  “Yes. I know the chief. Why?”

  “Could you bring me there this afternoon? I’m looking for the right locations to build two water wells for the Maasai. Kate thought this location would be good, but I also want one farther inland. It’s a memorial to our mother and her work with the tribe.”

  If Kash was surprised by this, he didn’t show it. Kate must have already told him, she decided.

  “It would be better to locate the wells closer to an encampment where the families are located,” Kash suggested. “When do you want to hire the construction team?”

  “I had intended to do it before we left for Samburu.”

  “You sound as if you’ve changed your mind.”

  She hesitated, unwilling at the moment to bring up the matter of the missing money. “No, but unfortunately the project must be delayed. Still, I do want to settle on the locations.”

  He looked at her with interest. “Delayed? Why?”

  She drew in a breath. “It seems the twenty thousand Kate and I raised is—well, not here waiting, as I had expected.”

  Sable briefly told him what had happened but carefully omitted any mention of the possibility that Dr. Adler had taken the money. She must first talk to Vince. She was certain he could explain. Evidently Kash was ahead of her, for he asked, “Who has access to your funds in Namanga?”

  She avoided his gaze. “If I told you Dr. Adler, you’d immediately suspect him.”

  “Perhaps with good cause.”

  “If he did need to appropriate it for another project, you can be sure it wasn’t deliberate on his part,” she said quietly. She remembered what Kash had said about Vince’s “personal cause” at Lake Rudolf. Would he dare use it to fund an evolutionary project?

  “You mean he didn’t know you expected to build two wells?” he asked smoothly.

  “Of course he knew—” She stopped, trapped.

  “So he did know. Then he used your money despite your plans.”

  She turned, exasperated, and looked at him. If her emotions troubled him he didn’t show it.

  He half smiled. “I wouldn’t trust a man who could put a pin in your dreams and see them burst, all for a cause of his own.”

  That’s what you did to me, she wanted to say but was no longer certain of even that. He had said he returned, that he had even written her in Toronto.

  “You’re rushing to judgment again,” she accused. “I don’t know for sure he took the money, and neither do you.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. But it should be easy enough to find out. It had to be transferred from Namanga to the Nairobi bank. They can inform you who drew it out and where it went.”

  Sable remained silent and stepped outside the tent, feeling the hot sun.

  Kash followed. “Unless,” he said, watching her, “you prefer not to know for personal reasons.”

  “I want to know the truth,” she stated. “Why shouldn’t I? The wells, the evangelism work, the film—they’re the reasons I’ve come home. Nothing must interfere with that. Not Vince, not anyone.”

  In the descending silence, he stood watching her, and Sable said again, looking toward his Land Rover, “Did you say your MAF friend is contacting a Maasai manyatta near here?”

  “Dean? Yes, about twenty miles away. Why?”

  She hesitated, glancing at him musingly. “Do you have friendly contact with the chief there?”

  He watched her cautiously. “Somewhat.”

  She looked back toward the Land Rover and sighed. “I wish I had a small truck.”

  He scanned her. “Would you mind telling me why?”

  She began carefully. “I want to show the film on the life of Christ. It’s all in Swahili—but I’ll need help setting up the equipment and the permission of the chief. I’m sure he wouldn’t give me permission for several reasons—but he might for you and Dean.”

  “I see. And you think a poacher and an adventurer with no regard for man or beast would be the right kind of man to help you perform so lofty and noble a project?”

  The question was double-edged, but she realized he hadn’t come out and refused.

  “And if I get you this permission, would it make you happy?”

  She was surprised by his unexpected warmth and cooperation. “Why—yes! Yes, it would, Kash!”

  Sable walked slowly toward him, her eyes looking directly into his. In a soft voice, she continued, “I’m beginning to be happier now than I’ve been in years.”

  His gaze held hers. “Then you mustn’t be disappointed.”

  She looked at him, excitement bubbling up into her smile. “Then you’re serious—you’ll try?”

  His languid gaze flickered over her face. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know…I just didn’t think you would.”

  “There’s no guarantee the chief will grant permission.”

  “But you’ll try to arrange it?”

  “Anything for Sable Dunsmoor. I’ll bring you out to the encampment this afternoon to meet Dean. We could try to arrange a film showing before the conference.”

  “Hey, you two!” called Kate, standing with Mckibber beside the dining tent. “Lunch is ready.”

  Still holding her father’s letter, she placed it in her pocket and walked with Kash toward the tent. It would need to wait, but now she knew its contents—that her father had hired Kash to bring her to the NFD camp. And she wondered how Kash could be suspected of poaching if her father so trusted him.

  ****

  After lunch, Sable hurried to Kate’s tent to change, ignoring her bag still packed with her boots and safari clothes. Kash was near the tent, loading the Land Rover with water for the twenty-mile drive inland to the Maasai manyatta.

  Kate had decided she was too busy to go with them, while Mckibber insisted on returning to the lodge to load the film equipment and bring it back to the Maasai manyatta.

  Kash came to the tent as she was grabbing her camera. She turned and saw him standing there, scanning her. He lifted his sunglasses. “If that dress is for my benefit, it’s not necessary.”

  She blushed. “You suppose wrong. It is definitely not for your benefit.”

  “Then I won’t ask who else you’re expecting on the way, except a lions’ pride.”

  Her lashes narrowed as his gaze took in her light sundress and knapsack, where she kept her sunscreen, sunglasses, and lip balm. “Don’t you think you should wear boots and safari khakis?” he persisted smoothly.

  “I’m tired of them,” she admitted. “I feel cooler.”

  “You won’t for long.”

  She put on her hat. “I know what I’m doing. I was Kenya-born, too, remember?”

  “Ah yes! Who could forget the old and great colonial names of Dunsmoor and Hallet? In the young colony it meant something—it doesn’t anymore.”

  His words unwillingly reminded her about the shipping in Mombasa and the shady deed of her grandfather. They would still need to discuss the serious and uncomfortable matter that Kash owned half the company and wanted it all.

  She glanced at him to see if his remark was intended to open the door to that unwanted topic, but his handsome expression showed nothing as he watched her from shaded eyes, toying with the Land Rover keys.

  “You’ve forgotten what it’s
like out there in the open country. Two years in Canada has civilized you.” He smiled and gestured to her bag of safari things. “Bring them just in case. If you don’t, you can stay here and give yourself a manicure.”

  “Your bossy ways haven’t changed through the years.”

  His smile was electric. “They’re not likely to either.” He snatched up her bag and gestured her politely past. “After you, Miss Canada!”

  She smiled and brushed past, leaving a whiff of her favorite perfume.

  Ten

  Leaving the medical camp, they started inland on the twenty-mile journey. Crossing a ridge, the Land Rover bounced and jolted over the rough track, with an inevitable dust cloud trailing behind in the stifling afternoon, the sky blue and brilliant.

  The track narrowed to two wheel marks bordered by thick acacia thornbush. For an hour they slogged through heat and dust, and on either side of the Land Rover, the dense scrub raked the sides with a screeching that set Sable’s nerves on edge. Her light cotton dress was covered with a fine layer of dust, and her back was sweaty against the leather seat. Kash looked over at her and smiled. She turned her head away. He handed her the canteen. “It’s lukewarm,” he teased. “You left your ice cubes in Toronto.”

  “I don’t like ice water,” she retorted good-naturedly, out to prove she hadn’t forgotten, and unstopped the canteen to drink, but it tasted miserable.

  Sable lifted her field glasses from her lap and scanned the savanna. There was much game to be seen at this time of the day, for in the hot noonday the great herds of zebra and gazelle that grazed across the open ranges in the early morning would retire to the shade of trees, and in the late afternoon, especially in this dry season, they came in herds to the water holes.

  Noticing she was searching, Kash motioned to a grove of acacias. Sable turned her head quickly so as not to miss the sight as Kash slowed. A troop of baboons howled, leaping and dancing among the branches as the Land Rover passed.

  Sable looked at Kash and laughed. “I never get over seeing them. I used to think of all this in Toronto and wonder if my memories were merely nostalgic.”

  “And,” he said quietly, looking ahead as the speedometer climbed, “now that you’re back and have seen it as it is again, does it live up to your memory?”

  Why did she think he was including himself in that question? She busied herself with the field glasses again. “Yes, it’s as I remembered it to be,” she said casually.

  Kash made no comment at first. “So, in spite of everything, you’re glad you’ve come back to Kenya?”

  He was being rather direct. “Why shouldn’t I come back? I always intended to. Kenyatta’s my home—at least until the lease with the government runs out again and they decide on another game warden…. I can’t even bear to think it might happen.”

  “Most likely it will,” he said with nothing in his voice. “You’ll need to get used to walking away from your loves…like the rest of us.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” Sable’s mood had changed from one of exhilaration to concealed despondency.

  He looked over at her. “I didn’t mean to ruin your outing.”

  “I didn’t think I was openly sulking.”

  “You weren’t. But I read you like a map.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  He smiled. “Anyway, I wasn’t asking if you were sorry you’d come home, but about the situation you found when you arrived.”

  Oh no, now it’s coming, she thought. He’s going to bring up the shipping and my grandfather.

  “What do you mean?” she asked innocently. “I don’t find any situation so troubling.”

  “You wouldn’t fib to me now, would you? You know the situation I’m talking about—your father, Zenobia—Seth, Vince, and me.”

  Seth. Sable looked at him contritely. “Oh, Kash, I am sorry—about Seth, I mean. I didn’t mean to sound so indifferent—” She stopped. “I wanted to say something sooner. You know how much I thought of him.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I doubt he is.”

  “But you are,” she said gently. “That’s what matters. The two of you were so close. How did it happen, Kash?”

  “Ask Vince,” he said coldly.

  They were back to that again. “He says the same thing of you.”

  Kash looked thoughtful. “Does he? He’d like to find out how much I know. Did he ask you to question me?”

  She was on the verge of denying it. “Yes,” she admitted. If she had held back the truth, Kash would have suspected, and his trust in her would have suffered.

  “You can tell him to come to me about it.”

  “Then, if you won’t discuss it, I’ll ask Mckib how Seth’s death happened. He’ll explain the truth.”

  He didn’t deny Mckibber would know, nor request that she refrain from asking him, and they drove in silence for a few uncomfortable minutes.

  As far north and south as she could see, there was little except thornbush, grasses, and heat. Then Kash slowed the Land Rover and consulted a map.

  She couldn’t resist. “Don’t tell me the best safari guide in East Africa has lost his way?”

  He smiled. “No, I need to confirm visual checkpoints.” He drove on over mostly flat grass savanna and past occasional stands of sparse flat-topped trees and bushes, then the Land Rover crested a small ridge. Spread before their eyes was one of the last watering holes of the dry season, which hundreds and even thousands of animals would visit before the rains replenished the reserve.

  Herds of wildebeest grazed on the dry grasses of the now dusty riverbed where there was blue water in the wet season. The African sky was stacked with brilliant white puffs, and as the sun was getting low, they glowed flamingo pink.

  Sable stirred with excitement and snatched up her field glasses. A herd of giraffes was approaching. In tune with her mood, Kash cut the engine, and they watched and listened. A jackal wailed with a quavering voice, and from far away the bellow of a lion rolled in, fierce and authoritative. A lone kestrel hovered, its wings silhouetted against the evening sky.

  Grunts and snorts sounded from a herd of at least three thousand springbok, small gazelles with horns a foot long that turned inward at the tips. Their faces were boldly painted with a white-and-black bar running from their mouths to their eyes, and also along the crest of their back to the tip of their mulelike tails.

  A black-backed jackal with a sly, foxy face and a saddle of black hair over his back trotted between the thornbushes on a hunt.

  Their hoofbeats, thousands of them, shuddered the afternoon. The herd was charging alongside the water hole. Sable saw the reason why—a pride of female lions with the male standing off in the bush. Working as a team, the young lions had already decided on the yearling that would become food for their young. The lioness bounded in a powerful sprint after the springbok, which zigzagged sharply but was met by the second lioness in the hunting party. The dust flew….

  Sable lowered her field glasses, not wishing to see more.

  Kash reached over and took her hand, offering a tender squeeze, and she felt the empathy he shared with her.

  Death, blood, and suffering—the result of Adam’s sin on all of God’s creation—was clearly on display in Africa. She thought of the verse in Romans: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

  A moment later, Sable looked at Kash cautiously and decided it was time to face the matter of Dunsmoor shipping head on.

  “Gran told me about my grandfather…and the Hallet property after the Mau Mau Emergency.”

  He looked off toward the water hole.

  “I talked to Gran last night about Dunsmoor shipping,” Sable said.

  “Yes, I know. She told me on the phone this morning. Looks like we have a business deal to talk over, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose I should apologize for my grandfather.”

  “No need. He made his own decisions long before either of
us were here. Zenobia, too, had nothing to do with it.”

  “You’re angry with us. I don’t blame you.”

  “I’m not angry at the Dunsmoors, but at your grandfather’s audacity. The early colonizers thought they were a law unto themselves. His decision to use the wealth that wasn’t his permanently affected my life and Seth’s. We were two penniless orphans, and things could have gone differently for us if our mother had known about the gold her father had found in Melbourne. Instead, she considered herself a pauper and married my father—a good man in his own way, I’m told by Mckib, and her cousin, but an embarrassingly uneducated Englishman and penniless.”

  Sable wondered if Mara had actually been in love with Thomas Hallet from South Africa, a young man who had been disowned by his family. Mckibber had mentioned to her once that Thomas had been a wanderer who couldn’t keep a job because of his drinking, which ended in fights and petty thefts.

  “And if she hadn’t gone with him that day to South Africa to try to reconcile with his parents in the hope of moving in with them—she wouldn’t have gone down on that plane….”

  Kash didn’t finish. She knew what he meant. If his mother hadn’t left Kenyatta with Tom, she wouldn’t have died with him. And if Grandfather Dunsmoor hadn’t helped himself to the gold, there would have been no need for them to leave. His parents would be alive. His mother would have married a better man, and the gold would be invested wisely in the Hallet name. Yes, everything could have been so different.

  “One man’s deed can affect an entire generation,” he said thoughtfully. “I never understood how Adam’s sin could affect the entire human race,” he stated, “but I do now. Our actions become links in a chain that can reach down to our great-grandchildren and create the environment that they’re born into.”

  “But there is victory in Christ, Kash. We’re not bound to stay in the environment created by parents and grandparents,” she countered. “We make our own individual decisions. We can get out. We can change things.”

  “Sometimes we can. Other times the chains that bind are too strong to break.”

  “But Christ can break those chains!”